


Exactly What You Think It Is

by kittensmctavish



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Awkwardness, Broken Bones, Gen, Naked Female Clothed Male, Showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:44:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittensmctavish/pseuds/kittensmctavish
Summary: You. Naked in the shower. Jefferson is also there. It’s exactly what you think it is. (And by that, I mean it’s not at all.)Originally posted to tumblr October 26, 2017.





	Exactly What You Think It Is

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from my tumblr of the same name.
> 
> I EAGERLY AWAIT YOUR HATE.

Thomas Jefferson knocked on the door of the Schuyler household. He waited patiently as he heard approaching footsteps on the other side of the door. It soon opened. Angelica Schuyler now stood in front of him, giving him a pointed look.

“Jefferson.”

“Schuyler.”

They glared at each other for a few moments, before giving each other wry little smiles.

Jefferson and Angelica were sort-of rivals in all of their classes. Intellectually, for sure; they were always competing for the highest grades, best grade point average, who was going to be valedictorian, the usual.

(There was also that one time she’d punched him in the face. But they generally didn’t talk about that incident.)

“So we gonna start this project or just smirk at each other all day?” Jefferson asked. Angelica arched an eyebrow.

“Well, I SUPPOSE I should let you in first,” Angelica sighed, stepping aside.

“Such a gracious host,” Jefferson said, giving Angelica an overexaggerated bow. She rolled her eyes. As Jefferson walked in, he heard heavy footsteps from upstairs.

“Thought you said your sisters were out for the day,” Jefferson said. “Something about Peggy holing up in the library and Eliza and Hamilton hanging out for the day.”

“They are,” Angelica said, confusion on her face for a second before her eyes widened in realization. “Ohhhhh, right. Crutchie’s staying with us for a while.”

Jefferson laughed, recalling the nickname you’d given yourself as your foot surgery approached.

“How’s she doing?” he asked, setting his attaché case down on a nearby couch. “Surgery go okay?” Angelica nodded.

“She’s off the heavy pain meds,” she said. “…actually, she was never ON them. Got by on a cocktail of Tylenol, Aleve, and Advil.” Jefferson raised his eyebrows.

“Impressive pain tolerance.”

“She had minor foot surgery, Thomas, not an organ transplant.”

“Still…she got any leftover Vicodin? Asking for a friend.”

“You’re intolerable.”

“So are you.”

There was a loud thud from upstairs. It made both Jefferson and Angelica jump.

“I’M OKAY, ANG!” you called.

“YOU SURE?” Angelica called up the stairs.

“JUST GETTING IN THE SHOWER, I’M GOOD!”

“SURE YOU DON’T NEED HELP WITH THAT, CRUTCHIE?” Jefferson called.

“HARDY-HAR!” was your response before the soft shutting of a door was heard.

“You’re such a prick, Thomas,” Angelica said, shaking her head. She only broke the first name out in moments of intense frustration with the man.

“Can she even take a shower right now?” Jefferson said.

“She can and she IS.”

“How?”

“Very carefully.”

“But isn’t she in a cast? And aren’t casts supposed to not get wet?”

Before Angelica could answer, there was the sound of a phone buzzing. Angelica looked over at her phone, charging on a small table next to a couch in the living room. She picked it up and looked at the new notification. Her eyes widened.

“Oh fu—I FORGOT.” She rushed past Jefferson into the kitchen to fetch…something.

“Um…what?” Jefferson was confused. And he didn’t like being confused.

“I have to go feed King George!” Angelica called from the kitchen.

“…I repeat – um…what?”

“Old family friends are out of town this week and needed someone to feed their stupid spoiled cat, water their plants, get the mail, all that,” Angelica said, walking towards the front door as she slipped the shoulder strap of her purse over her head. “I was supposed to feed the fat little fucker, like, twenty minutes ago and forgot. I gotta go handle that.”

“Okay?” Jefferson was still catching up. “I take it you don’t like this cat?”

“He’s the fucking worst. So fucking spoiled.”

Angelica grabbed her keys from the table where her phone had been charging.

“I’ll be back in, like, thirty,” Angelica informed him. “I am trusting you not to wreck the house in the brief time I will be out. And NO MAKING MAC AND CHEESE. Our project will not take THAT long.”

And with that, Angelica had closed the door behind her.

“…so that happened,” Jefferson said to absolutely no one. He shrugged and walked towards the kitchen, passing through it to the dining room. Angelica had already set out her paperwork and books for their project. Jefferson opened his attaché case to take out his laptop, his flash drives, his notebooks…

“ANG!”

Jefferson looked up, setting the last of his notebooks down. He walked towards the stairs and stepped up a couple of them.

“CRUTCHIE?” he called. “EVERYTHING OKAY?”

“IS ANG THERE?” you called. Jefferson lightly stepped up the rest of the stairs.

“She had to step out and take care of something,” Jefferson said, not as loud as before, but enough to pass through the thick wood of the door. Enough to be heard over the sound of the running showerhead.

“King George?”

“Evidently.”

“That fat little fucker.”

“Anything I can help with? You okay?”

“Yeah, I just…dropped the shampoo in the tub and can’t quite reach it.” Jefferson could sense the awkwardness seeping into your voice. “I’d get up to get it, but the doctor said no weight-bearing on my leg for a few more weeks, so…”

“…well…I can get it for you real quick. I promise not to look at anything.” A pause. “Is the door open? Locked?”

“No, it’s open.”

“Okay.”

A pause.

“…you coming in or what?”

“Yeah, okay, was just waiting for your okay to come in.”

Jefferson opened the door. Steam lingered in the air from the hot water of the shower. A pair of crutches leaned against the wall.

“So, is the shampoo near the front of the tub or–?”

“Yes.”

Jefferson gingerly pushed the front of the shower curtain forward a little bit. Enough to see the shampoo bottle, lying over the drain as water pooled around it. Enough to see the tip of your foot (and, by extension, your leg) clad in a bright blue rubber sleeve covering your cast.

“Huh.”

“What ‘huh’?”

Jefferson jumped a bit at your question.

“Oh, just…didn’t know that’s how you showered when you’re in a cast,” Jefferson said, gesturing towards your foot as he reached forward to pick up the shampoo bottle, deliberately not looking at you.

“Yeah, they make them for arms, too,” you said casually. Jefferson nodded and reached his arm back, extending the shampoo bottle towards you. He thought he heard you stifle laughter, but he wasn’t sure. “A little to the right, please.” Jefferson acquiesced. “My right, not yours.” Jefferson adjusted his arm accordingly. He felt a new pressure on the shampoo bottle, and a slight brush of your fingers against his. He relinquished his hold on the bottle. “Thanks, Jefferson.”

‘Happy to help,” Jefferson said, standing back up to close the shower curtain. “Angelica should be back soon, so…”

You stuck your arm out through the other end of the shower curtain to give him a thumbs-up. Jefferson couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Although I HAVE been told I’m REALLY good at washing hair.”

The thumbs-up shifted into a middle finger. If anything, that made Jefferson laugh harder.

“Enjoy your shower, Crutchie,” he laughed as he left the bathroom.

“Enjoy your fuck-off, Jefferson!” you called just as he closed the door.

Jefferson’s smile stayed on his face all the way back to the dining room.

Minutes passed as he turned on his laptop, organizing his notebooks and stacks of print-outs as said laptop booted up. Once completely on, he inserted a flashdrive into his laptop and selected files to load, opening up the Powerpoint presentation he’d already begun drafting with Angelica. He gave it a quick once-over, making slight corrections eithout adding or eliminating any information (spelling corrections, sizes of fonts, etc.).

‘THUD’

“FUCK!”

Jefferson jumped out of his chair to a standing position. He didn’t think twice before dashing to the stairs, taking them two at a time at the sound of another thud and a strangled cry. He called your name as he opened the bathroom door.

You were half-laying out of the bathtub, struggling to reach your crutches. Somehow, your crutches had knocked over, so reaching them was fruitless; your fingertips barely brushed the ends. Your legs were propped over the edge of the bathtub, rubber-clad cast resting against the floor, your other bare foot gripping the bathmat with your toes.

“I’m fine, I’m not hurt,” you said, voice strained as you reached for your crutches. “I just…tried to get up and hop my way over to my crutches and slipped and landed on my bad foot.”

The fact that you hadn’t reached for the towel first – the fact that your still VERY NAKED body was bared in the room – didn’t really cross Jefferson’s mind at first. Instead, in your struggle to reach the crutches, your still-damp hand skidded against the porcelain of the tub, and you fell forward, completely out of the tub, hip and head hitting the floor and arm bending at an awkward angle.

“Christ,” Jefferson hissed, instantly down by your side to pick you up by the shoulders, your hands instinctively reaching out to steady yourself on the closest thing (being his thighs). As you righted your posture, he took your face in his hands, turning it gently, looking for bruises.

“I’m not hurt, I was just startled,” you insisted.

“You’re absolutely sure?” Jefferson asked, still somewhat frantic. “You landed REALLY hard on your hip, you’re sure that’s not in trouble?” His hands moved to shift your side so he had a better look at your hip, to make sure there wasn’t any bruising—

“THOMAS.”

…and with the utterance of his first name from your lips, that’s when it hit him. That his hands were on your bare skin. That you’d fallen out of the shower. And that you were still very Very VERY naked beneath him (well, basically, beneath him, with the way he was hovering over you).

“…let me get you a towel.”

“Please.”

He turned towards the towel rack that hung on the bathroom door and grabbed the biggest one (a soft dark blue one). He turned back towards you – eyes deliberately avoiding your body – and helped wrap the towel around you.

“Thanks,” you muttered, shifting slightly to make the task easier. Clutching the towel around your body with one hand, your other hand went up to the toilet so you could try to prop yourself up into a standing position. Jefferson watched you struggled with this for a few moments. Then he was bending down and picking you up, one arm tucking under the crook of your legs, the other arm wrapping around your waist.

“Jefferson, what are yo–?”

“Just let me help you,” Jefferson said, faintly annoyed. You made a slight sound of protest in the back of your throat, but Jefferson glanced down at you. With a look that said, “You NEED my help, and you know it”. You sighed and gently wrapped your arms around his neck.

‘What room are you in?” Jefferson asked as he carried you out of the bathroom, careful not to bump your cast against anything as he did.

“Eliza’s,” you said softly. “Second door on the left.”

“Eliza WOULD give up her room for you,” Jefferson said, in that mocking tone that one used when speaking about someone fondly.

“She’d do the same for anyone,” you shot back. “Even you.”

“Ouch.”

There was a ‘thunk’ as the toes of your cast tapped against the bedroom door.

“Sorry,” Jefferson said, adjusting the angle at which he was holding you. “Did that hurt?”

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m fine?”

“…eighty-seven.”

“Shut up.”

Jefferson carefully set you down at the foot of Eliza’s bed.

“I’ll go get your crutches,” he said, and he was out of the bedroom before you could say anything in response.

When Jefferson got back to the bathroom, he picked up the crutches. He glanced around the bathroom, and his eyes went to the bathtub. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, what with the closed curtain (the first time) and your form prone on the floor (the second time). But there was a small chair in the bathtub, the detachable showerhead next to it, the hose snaking towards the front of the tub.

Ah. So that’s how you showered. Made sense, now that he saw it. He’d seen chairs and stools like that before, for showering purposes for the handicapped; one of his grandparents had needed one near the end of their life.

After picking up the crutches, he halted at the door and grabbed another dark blue towel. And then he was back to Eliza’s bedroom, where you seemed to be struggling to get the blue rubber sleeve off your leg (with one hand, the other hand still gripping the towel around your body). You lost your grip on the rubber, and it snapped against your skin.

“Want help with that?” Jefferson asked. You looked up. Before you could answer, he handed the other towel to you. “For your hair. Thought you might want it.

“Thanks,” you said, taking the towel and setting it to the side before going back to the rubber sleeve.

‘You know, you’d probably have an easier time of that if you used both hands,” Jefferson said. “Just an observation.”

“Yeah, well…you’ve seen enough of my naked body already, probably won’t want to see it again,” you said drily. You gave him a look, and Jefferson thought he saw a hint of a challenge in your eyes.

“Okay, that’s just not fair, catch-22-ing me like that,” Jefferson laughed. Your look shifted from challenging to puzzled. “If I say something like, ‘you’ve got nothing to worry about, you look fine’, you could interpret that as me being a pervert who just liked to look at naked women. If I don’t say anything, or if I say I didn’t look at anything I wasn’t supposed to, you could interpret that as an insult. That your naked body is not worth looking at. Either way, I come out of this looking bad.”

“…you know there are other options, right?” you said after a slight pause.

“Is there?”

“The option where you say ‘I didn’t look at anything I wasn’t supposed to’, and I think ‘oh, thank Christ, he was a gentleman about this whole awkward situation’. There’s the one where we fall into an awkward silence after my self-deprecating remark because this whole situation is incredibly awkward. There’s the one where it doesn’t matter what you think I think of you because I’m being my usual self-deprecating self and don’t find anything particularly impressive about my body.” You held a finger up. “And there’s definitely the one where you don’t think the same thing about that last remark, because SELF-DEPRECATION, Jefferson. It’s what I do best.”

Jefferson opened his mouth to say something else, but closed it. You had a point. You did have a habit for self-deprecation.

“…how about we go with the one where I ask again if you want help with your leg,” he finally said.

“Want, no. Need, most definitely.” Your hand moved away from the rubber sleeve. “I’m always afraid I’m gonna get the cast wet taking this damn thing off.” You laughed a little. “Kinda funny, considering you wear it in the shower to prevent your cast from getting wet in the first place.” Jefferson laughed before he got down on his knees next to you and reached for the rubber sleeve.

“Sure you’re okay with this?” Jefferson asked.

“Oh my god,” you sighed in exasperation.

“Just…wanna make sure I’m not making you uncomfortable,” Jefferson said.

“Can’t get any more uncomfortable than it already has been,” you said, propping yourself back on your free hand in a half-lean.

“So…yes?”

“Just fucking get it done, Jefferson.”

“Okay, okay, bossy.”

Jefferson tucked his finger under the top of the rubber sleeve and began to turn it inside out, drawing it down. The top of your thigh was exposed first, then your knee, before he got to your cast.

“You know, I could have made a ‘picking up girls’ joke earlier,” you said casually. “But I didn’t, Because I’m better than that.”

Jefferson stopped and laughed, in spite of himself.

“Oh my god…” He rested his forehead against the end of the bed for a moment as he laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well…usually you pick up girls, THEN get to see them naked,” you continued. “We kinda did everything backwards.”

“You’re fuckin’ ridiculous,” Jefferson laughed as he reached the end of your foot and the rubber sleeve slipped off, now inside out. “I’ll go take this to the tub to dry.”

“I’ll get it in a little bit,” you said, reaching out for it. Jefferson shrugged and handed the inside-out rubber sleeve to you. You set it down next to you and picked up the other towel he’d brought you. With your free hand, you draped it over your hair, trying to squeeze some of the wet strands between the folds of the towel.

“I didn’t see anything, you know,” Jefferson said, after a short time of watching you. Your hand halted. “Like, I did see…I wasn’t looking to see anything…lasciviously, or anything. I was looking for bruises or…injuries. Like, I didn’t run up here thinking ‘Oh, hey, here’s my chance to see a naked woman’, I ran up here thinking, ‘Shit, one of my friends who’s just had surgery could be hurt, could have broken something at the surgical site, I need to make sure she’s okay’.”

A long, pregnant pause.

“Just…wanted to clear the air on that. And I’m not saying any of that with the intention of, ‘Oh, he doesn’t think I’m attractive’ or anything, it had nothing to do with that, you’re my friend and—”

You tugged his sleeve and pulled him down towards you, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Anyone ever told you that you talk as much as Alex sometimes?” you said softly. Jefferson looked back at you, aghast.

“That’s the worst fuckin’ insult you could ever give me.”

You giggled and kissed his other cheek.

“You’re very sweet, Thomas,” you said, “but that doesn’t stop you from being as obnoxious as Alex sometimes.”

“EXCUSE YOU.”

“I said SOMETIMES.”

“I helped you out SO much this afternoon. I do NOT deserve to be insulted like this.”

“Mmmmmmmm yeah you kinda do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback welcome and appreciated.


End file.
